It has favorable matchups versus virtually all control or late game-oriented decks, with impressive statistics against Control Priest, Anyfin Paladin, Control Paladin, and Renolock. Traditionally, anti-aggro Midrange decks have been vulnerable to Control decks that can deal with the few threats they run, and either fatigue them out or overwhelm them with threats of their own. In many ways, it reflects an archetype that Blizzard seems keen to encourage and promote. It’s important to recognize that whilst oppressively powerful, there’s not too much to complain about with the impact and play style of Midrange Shaman. You need only look at the decline of decks such as Zoolock, Tempo Rogue, and Aggro Shaman to see the massive influence that Midrange Shaman has had on constraining aggressive decks that too often have too few counters. So what does this mean? Essentially, it results in a deck that is supremely effective against aggressive, pro-active decks, by repeatedly and efficiently clearing boards and putting up defenses. Should that ever be a serious counter to the deck’s dominance, a single copy of Healing Wave would easily swing the matchup back in the Shaman’s favor. The only reactive tool it lacks is a source of life gain, hence the decks vulnerability to Freeze mage. It forgoes virtually any burst potential from hand for a totally board-centered approach. The deck runs multiple board clears, hard and spot removal, defensive taunts, defensive weapons, and weapon removal. We have to analyze the deck as a whole, the archetype it falls into, and why traditional counters to that archetype haven’t been up to the challenge.Īt its core, Midrange Shaman is a highly reactive deck compared to other midrange archetypes, such as Dragon Warrior, Midrange Hunter or the old Secret Paladin. Rather than focusing on any one card, we must understand how to solve the Shaman problem by looking at the meta and where it fits. This would risk returning Shaman to its oppressive state. This would force Blizzard to either give the class the Priest treatment of letting it languish in obscurity for multiple expansions, or take the risk of giving them many more competitive cards. Whilst the deck or some variation of it might just survive a comprehensive program of rebalancing, it’s likely that it would fall apart later on. Tunnel Trogg, Thunderbluff Valiant, and Totem Golem are all on their way out in the next Standard rotation. Before Standard and the Whispers of the Old Gods expansion, Controlling or Midrange archetypes of Shaman were simply non-existent in competitive environments. Such an action would not only conflict with Team 5’s usual rhythm of balance changes, but would also likely have heavy repercussions for the class’s viability in the medium to long term. However, this is both unlikely and probably unhealthy. This is a deck that frequently only runs one Fire Elemental, one of the most potent Midrange cards ever printed! The only way to significantly impact the deck’s power level would be a comprehensive change to a number of core cards. Even if, as is often proposed, Blizzard took emergency action and made changes to any single specific card in the current lists, the Shaman package is so synergistic and powerful that any card that was rebalanced could simply be replaced. Unlike in other cases, there is no one card that makes Midrange Shaman so powerful. As the nerfs to Tuskarr Totemic and Rockbiter Weapon have proven, the problem cannot be isolated to specific cards without unforeseen side effects. With the amount of Shamans reaching critical mass it’s clear that something has to change. This lack of counter-queuing has led to a nightmare scenario, where the best counter to the dominant deck, while remaining consistent over the rest of the ladder, is to queue up with the exact same deck!ĭata aggregators estimate that Midrange Shaman is currently averaging an unprecedented 56% win-rate over the whole of the ladder (recently the estimate has been dropping, but only because more mirror matches pushes the result closer to 50%). Whilst several decks have an even matchup, it is only Freeze Mage, an expensive and skill intensive deck with multiple hard counters and poor performance against the rest of the meta, that can get a decisive edge. It is powerful and flexible, able to transform the tiniest of advantages into huge swings, and managing to create hugely threatening boards out of just a few cards. It is unique in its surprising consistency, with few, if any, direct counters among commonly played decks.
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